(Antwerp 1530-1584) The Big Fish Eat the Small Ones, after Hieronymus Bosch, 1557, engraving, on fine laid paper, monogrammed, inscribed and dated "Hieronmyus Bos inventor/ COCK. EXCU.1557" in the plate, 22,8 x 29,4 cm, with broad margins along the lateral platemarks, the margins of upper and lower margins smaller, Hollstein 139 I (after P. Bruegel), Hollstein 46 I (Pieter van der Heyden), mounted, framed, (Sch)

Provenance:
An adhesive label Valeria Bella Stampe, Milano on the reverse; private collection, Italy.

The present engraving was edited by Hieronymus Cock(1510-1570) in Antwerp in 1557. The engraver Pieter van der Heyden took a drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder as model (1556), which is kept in the Albertina (Inv. 7875) today and is presumably based on a lost composition by Hieronymus Bosch (1450/60-1516).

Literature:
For the drawing see: Hans Mielke, Pieter Bruegel, die Zeichnungen, Turnhout 1996, No 31; Pieter Bruegel die Elder. Drawings and Prints, New York 2001, No. 38; Klaus Albrecht Schröder (Ed.), Die großen Meister der Albertina, Vienna, Ostfildern 2008, No. 24; A. K. Bosch, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt. Meisterwerke der Albertina, ed. by K. A. Schröder and C. Metzger, Albertina, Vienna, Ostfildern 2013, No. 41.